Libyans hold 1st nationwide vote in decadesTRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Jubilant Libyans chose a new parliament Saturday in their first nationwide vote in decades, but violence and protests in the restive east underscored the challenges ahead as the oil-rich North African nation struggles to restore stability after last year’s ouster of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Women ululated, while men distributed sweets and the elderly with canes or wheelchairs struggled to get to polling centers ...

Afghan donors meet, expected to pledge $16B in aidTOKYO (AP) — An international donor meeting for Afghanistan that is expected to bring pledges of $16 billion in aid over the next four years has begun in Tokyo. The meeting, attended by about 70 countries and organizations, will set aid levels in a crucial period for Afghanistan as most foreign combat troops leave the war-torn country. U.S. officials traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said they expected the donors to pled...

Students march against Mexico’s election resultMEXICO CITY (AP) — Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Mexico’s capital on Saturday to protest Enrique Pena Nieto’s apparent win in the country’s presidential election, accusing his long ruling party of buying votes. The protesters were angered by allegations that Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party gave out bags of groceries, pre-paid gift cards and other goods to voters ahead of July 1 national elections. The students, unio...

US declares Afghanistan major non-NATO allyKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Obama administration on Saturday declared Afghanistan the United States’ newest “major non-NATO ally,” an action designed to facilitate close defense cooperation after U.S. combat troops withdraw from the country in 2014 and as a political statement of support for Afghanistan’s long-term stability. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrived in Kabul on an unannounced visit to meet Afghan President...

Pakistan: Gunmen kill 18 at roadside restaurantQUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire at a roadside restaurant in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 18 people, officials said. In the northwest, a U.S. drone strike killed 12 suspected militants near the Afghan border. The people killed in the restaurant attack in the remote town of Turbat in Baluchistan province were Pakistanis travelling with smugglers to Europe through neighboring Iran, said Abdul Razzaq, a govern...

Pena Nieto’s win confirmed by Mexico vote countMEXICO CITY (AP) — The official count in Mexico’s presidential election concluded on Friday with results showing that former ruling party candidate Enrique Pena Nieto won by a 6.6 percentage-point margin, almost exactly the same lead as a vote-night quick count gave him. The final count by the country’s electoral authority, which included a ballot-by-ballot recount at more than half of polling places, showed Pena Nieto getting 38.21 percent of...

US, allies press Assad as top Syrian general fleesPARIS (AP) — A top Syrian general’s defection is the first major crack in the upper echelons of President Bashar Assad’s regime, buoying a 100-nation conference Friday meant to intensify pressure for his removal, as well as an opposition desperate to bring him down but frustrated by diplomatic efforts. All hoped the defection of Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, an Assad confidant and son of a former defense minister who helped ease Assad into power, wo...

Argentina convicts 2 dictators of stealing babiesBUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The conviction of two former dictators for the systematic stealing of babies from political prisoners 30 years ago is a big step in Argentina’s effort to punish that era’s human rights abuses, though certainly not the last. Following Thursday’s convictions of Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, at least 17 other major cases are before judges or are nearing trial. Among them is a “mega-trial” involving the Navy Me...

Romania president impeached amid EU, US concernBUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers impeached President Traian Basescu in an overwhelming vote Friday, paving the way for a national referendum that could see the divisive and increasingly unpopular leader ousted from the powerful position he’s held for eight years. The vote of 256-114 in parliament came as Basescu and Prime Minister Victor Ponta have engaged in a bitter power struggle in the eastern European country of 19 million, wh...

UK: 7 terror suspects arrested after guns foundLONDON (AP) — Seven men have been arrested on suspicion of terrorist offenses in Britain after a routine vehicle search in northern England turned up firearms and weapons, police said Friday. The arrests, which took place earlier this week, were announced one day after officers in London detained six other terror suspects using stun guns and smoke grenades in early-morning swoops, including one on a home close to London’s Olympic Park. Police ...

Rain, rain go away: A London slog for Olympics?LONDON (AP) — After a sodden spring, is Britain heading for a summer washout? It’s lurched from the cold, wet drizzle that dampened the queen’s Diamond Jubilee flotilla on the Thames to a sea of mud at the Isle of Wight music festival to frequent delays at Wimbledon, where even the retractable roof couldn’t make the event all strawberries and cream. And now that the country has recorded its wettest June on record, should Olympic officials be c...

Tensions in Libya ahead of first post-Gadhafi voteTRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Fears of militia violence and calls for a boycott threatened Friday to mar Libya’s first nationwide parliamentary election, a milestone on the oil-rich North African nation’s rocky path toward democracy after the ouster of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Saturday’s vote for a 200-member transitional parliament caps a tumultuous nine-month transition toward democracy for the country after a bitter civil war that ended with the c...

Elite counterdrug units proposed for MexicoBOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The top security adviser for Mexico’s next president said Friday that he is recommending the creation of elite units of police and troops who will target not just major drug traffickers but also lower-level cartel hitmen as a way of swiftly reducing violence. The proposal newly retired Colombian police director Gen. Oscar Naranjo explained in an interview with The Associated Press offers a glimpse of how President-elect...

Judge lifts cruise ship captain’s house arrestROME (AP) — An Italian judge lifted the house arrest order for the captain of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruiser liner on Thursday, but said he must remain in his hometown near Naples during the criminal investigation regarding the accident off the Tuscan coast that killed 32 people. Captain Francesco Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the liner while many passengers and crew were still aboard. Judge ...

First NATO supply trucks cross Pakistan borderCHAMAN, Pakistan (AP) — Trucks carrying NATO supplies rolled into Afghanistan for the first time in more than seven months Thursday, ending a painful chapter in U.S.-Pakistan relations that saw the border closed until Washington apologized for an airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Thousands of trucks have been waiting at ports in Karachi for the transit ban to be lifted as the diplomatic wrangling dragged on. Drivers are eager to get...

Japan powered by nuclear energy again, blamed anewTOKYO (AP) — Nuclear power returned to Japan’s energy mix for the first time in two months Thursday, hours before a parliamentary panel blamed the government’s cozy relations with the industry for the meltdowns that prompted the mass shutdown of the nation’s reactors. Though the report echoes other investigations into last year’s disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, it could fuel complaints that Japan is trying to restart nuclear reactors...

New Mexican president could target small gangsMEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s next president has boldly promised to halve the number of kidnappings and murders during his six-year term by moving law enforcement away from showy drug busts and focusing on protecting ordinary citizens from gangs. Yet Enrique Pena Nieto said remarkably little specific about his anti-crime strategy during the three-month campaign that ended with his still-contested victory in Sunday’s election. That ambiguity has ...

New tests revive debate over Arafat deathJERUSALEM (AP) — The discovery of traces of a radioactive agent on clothing reportedly worn by Yasser Arafat in his final days reignited a cauldron of conspiracy theories Wednesday about the mysterious death of the longtime Palestinian leader. Arafat’s widow, who ordered the tests by a Swiss lab, called for her husband’s body to be exhumed, and Arafat’s successor gave tentative approval for an autopsy. But experts warned that even after the de...

Man in Afghan uniform wounds 5 US troopsKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire outside a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan, wounding five American soldiers, an Afghan police official said Wednesday. The number of insider attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan has increased this year, undermining the trust between allies and efforts to prepare Afghan troops to take over their own security as international combat troops prepare to withdraw. The U.S...

Eureka! Physicists celebrate evidence of particleGENEVA (AP) — Scientists at the world’s biggest atom smasher hailed the discovery of “the missing cornerstone of physics” Wednesday, cheering the apparent end of a decades-long quest for a new subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, or “God particle,” which could help explain why all matter has mass and crack open a new realm of subatomic science. First proposed as a theory in the 1960s, the maddeningly elusive Higgs had been hunted by at l...